Day 13 - Signs _ Orbs

Day 13 – Signs- Orbs

There is a fable that I read to the kids while I was pregnant with Joaquim called “the fire on the mountain”. It is about a poor man that took up a challenge by a rich king, to spend 3 days on top of an ice capped mountain without food, water, shelter and warmth. He succeeded in his challenge, by asking his guru to sit on the opposite mountain peak, miles away. The guru lit a bonfire on this peak. The poor man could not possibly have felt any warmth from the fire physically, but he survived the challenge by seeing the fire in the distance and imagining its warmth.

When you have lost a child, there is a physical process that gets interrupted. Your body yearns to nurture this child; your arms ache to hold him. You cannot smell him, see him, feel him, taste him, or touch him. As much as your mind knows that he is no longer physically there, the more your soul convinces you that he is still there, only in a different way. So you start to develop other senses to maintain that connection. A 6^th sense, that seems crazy at first, but the more signs you see, the more moments you “feel”, the more you should allow yourself to hone in on this sense, the more comfort you receive from it.

We started to see signs during the pregnancy. This pregnancy “felt” different to me, as if I knew deep down that he was not mine to keep. Family and friends would tell us about dreams they were having, premonitions that at the time we couldn’t explain.

A close friend of ours had a dream of a baby with amazing eyes that she loved too much to give away, and he died.

My mother said to me one day at the end of the pregnancy, “he has waited so long to join our family and thanks to you he will”.

After Joaquim came out of NICU, we were having a really good day, my mother was holding Joaquim in her arms, while her crazy boisterous dog was bouncing around the room, and she said, “We must enjoy every minute we share with him”. I felt it too, like the days were gifts that could soon run out. On his anniversary, we went to a medium, and she described this particular day in perfect detail, right down the dog.

We have family in Australia whom we have not seen in years. My cousin awoke the morning that Joaquim passed away, with a premonition. He did not know anything about Joaquim, but he phoned his mother in South Africa immediately saying that he was concerned about my baby.

 My sister in law too, had a similar dream the moment he passed away. When we called to tell her the news, she said she already knew.

On the morning that Joaquim passed away, my husband and I were driving home from the hospital, and we started to discuss sky lanterns. I had never seen one myself, only on movies like “tangled” and “the beach”. My husband, being Portuguese, said that in Madeira they often honour the dead by sending sky lanterns up. We were still discussing where we would even start looking for them, as we had never seen them in South Africa, when we crossed our garden path, and there was a sky lantern right in front of our house. It must have floated down from somewhere nearby.

After some internet searching, we found a local supplier of sky lanterns, and we bought a considerable supply. We started to honour his memory every month by inviting special friends and family over, and lighting them. On the first evening, a very dear friend of mine was photographing the process, and he asked me if I could see the Orbs.

I had no idea what an orb was!

He showed me the photographs. In every single picture, there were these circular disks of varying sizes floating in the sky.

 According to Diana Cooper, who wrote “enlightenment through orbs”, you can be given messages and receive enlightenment simply by looking at them. The pictures retain the light of the angelic beings. You receive energy directly from the angels. It will enter your consciousness whether you are open to it or not, and start to prepare you for greater enlightenment. If you are already aware and consciously ready to receive the energy, it can really affect you at a deep level.

For the last year, there is rarely a photograph that we have taken that does not contain Orbs. Whether it is Joaquim, or a guide, or an angel, it is physical proof for us that there is so much more to this existence than what we experience with just our 5 senses.

Apparently young children have the greatest connection with these senses. My four year old daughter has been my strongest supporter in recognising these signs. I was playing the piano the other night with my daughter on my lap. I was particularly engrossed in the piece I was playing and I was getting lost in the melody. In my peripheral vision, I saw what at first I thought was my 7 year old son standing next to me with the hugest grin on his face; clearly he was enjoying the piece as much as I was. When the piece was finished, I turned to look at him, but he was gone. I called for him and he answered that he was at the dining room table. I asked him if he had come to stand next to me at all, and he said “no”. My daughter immediately said, “Mommy that was Joaquim”. She feels him all the time. When I was meditating in the garden one day, and the tears were falling on the ground, she came up to me gently and said, “Mommy, don’t cry. Joaquim is all around us, he is in the sticks”.

When you feel that you are missing something, maybe it is that this something is missing you!

Only two things can reveal life’s great secrets: suffering and love. We experienced them both through Joaquim.

This picture was taken shortly after Joaquim passed, when all of the siblings and cousins were playing together outside at night.